


No Good Men

by tothevictorgoesthespoils



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And She's Still Okay With It, Character Analysis, F/M, Neighbors, Where Booker Drunkenly Knocks on Elizabeth's Door
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 05:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3637956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothevictorgoesthespoils/pseuds/tothevictorgoesthespoils
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two in the morning and Elizabeth wakes to find a man knocking on her door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Good Men

She’s nestling into her bed with her duvet wrapped tightly around her by the time she hears three loud pounds, in quick succession, on the front door. Snapped from the throes of rest, Elizabeth snaps up quickly, cursing underneath her breath as she knocks her books down to the floor.

Feet touching the carpet, she bites her lips, draws breath, and weighs her options. She was strategic with this apartment, located in a solidly charming solid-middle class neighborhood filled with start up couples and the older couples slowing down in life. She was acquainted with most of the tenants on her floor, Mrs. Hilde- a retired teacher, Matt- the piano instructor, Sara and Ezra-the graduate students, engaged and so-so-so in love, who study at her university.

Before she can figure out whether or not to ignore the noises, she hears flesh pound against the wooden door, louder, and more urgent this time. All she hears anymore is her heart bleeding through her ears as she springs to her feet and runs to the small kitchen alcove to retrieve a paring knife- just in case. She laments not taking Mrs. Hilde’s advise and stashing a small canister of mace in her nightstand drawer.

Light on her feet, she paces towards the door and peers through the peephole. She recognizes the man, tall, with broad shoulders slumped who wasn’t looking at anything really, slightly slumped against the door frame. She’s run into him at the mailboxes, on the stairway, in the parking lot before. He was always congenial and would nod or tilt his hat to her as an exchange of pleasantries-and rarely spoke. She noticed that he never looked at her, wide-eyed, almost a little too long like the other men stared at her, at her eyes, at her lips. He barely looked, always in a rush coming and going, and always so preoccupied with something.

A loud thump again, and before really thinking, Elizabeth pulls back on the doorknob and sees the man pause, dumbfounded, before her with his fist still dumbfounded in air.

“Ohh…” Uneasy on his feet, his grey (blue? green?) eyes are wide and confused, “Shit.” He loses the fight with balance and stumbles forward, and Elizabeth dives to catch him.

He smells like whiskey, aged and expensive, and behind it he smells faintly of sandalwood and sweat and he feels like lead against her frame as his stubble brushes against her collarbone-and the first and only significant thought she has about him is how he is overwhelming in every sensory way.

She manages to sit him down on the couch, and slips the knife on top of the side table. He’s rubbing his face in his hands, rugged, with scars on one that she can’t quite make out in the dark.

“Look….uh…miss?” She places a glass of cold water in his palms.

“It’s Elizabeth.” He stares and considers her for a moment. “I thought this was my apartment…appears I was mistaken” He gulps down the water and lets a thick groan leave his lips while shuffling through his pant pockets, “Jesus, I can’t seem to find my keys either.”

His voice is resigned and sounds like gravel and smoke. “And didn’t your father tell you never to let strange men into your house in the middle of the night?”

Her lips turn downwards and she laughs, “My father has never taught me anything.” He seems to have sobered up some, and is staring at her, he’s picked up at the bitterness in her voice.

“Though I concede, this wasn’t the smartest thing to do, was it? But I know you, you live upstairs.” She swears that he has feline like eyes, and that she’s seen them before, in her thoughts, dreams, these strange mirages that flutter by behind her eyes. 

He hums, and rolls the small empty glass between his palms. “Still though, it’s not right, I could be dangerous.”

Elizabeth reaches forwards and takes the glass from his hands and sets it on the coffee table.

“Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Dangerous, I mean, Mister uhh?” He sighs, and his shoulders seem to deflate some as he leans back into the couch. His eyes are still stormy, and there’s that slight haze of alcohol covering them. “Right, uh, my name’s Booker, Booker Dewitt.” 

“Mr. DeWitt” She says is slowly, listening to her own voice in her ear, and she’s taken by how easy it is to say it, how familiar the syllables feel on her tongue. 

Booker pats down his pockets again, impatiently this time. “I’ve lost my cigarettes too.” He rises to his feet unsteadily, using the sofa’s armrest as a brace.

“Christ, look at me nearly bursting down a strangers door in the middle of the night.” She moves closer to him and reaches out to hold his arm, he’s still unsteady. “I need to be going.” He says, and his voice is soft, and tired, and hooded.

“Let me help you, I doubt you can walk.” She hears him laugh for the first time, and it’s light and more airy than she expected. “Damn, you don’t know how to leave things alone, do you?” Beyond that, he doesn’t seem to resist.

He’s heavy against her, this warm and solid mass, that she swears she’s acquainted with from somewhere, sometime she can’t quite place. She knows how he displaces his weight, she finds that she’s familiar with his stumbles, and that if she circles her arm behind his waist-she can guide him easily up the stairs.

“Turn left, it’s the third down on the right in the hall. I keep a spare key underneath the doormat.” 

She hums in acknowledgement. “Now Mr. Dewitt, it isn’t exactly safe to be revealing your secrets to a stranger.” He lets out a grunt, and Elizabeth leans him against the wall as she reaches down to look under the mat for the key. With it in her fingers, she stands and unlocks the door only to find him staring intently at her, she’s intrigued at the intensity of it.

Reaching forward, she pulls him inside and spots the bedroom through the living room and once inside Booker sprawls onto his bed. She watches him stare at the ceiling fan, and wonders how inebriated he must have been at the start of this encounter. She sighs, and moves towards the foot of the bed to untie the laces on his shoes. She slips them both off and lets them fall unceremoniously to the floor, and perches at the edge of his bed beside him.

Her fingers go the Windsor knot of his tie, and pulls down to loosen it. “You’re good at this, you know?” He says, voice heavy with sleep. “You take care of a lot of drunk men?” 

She slips the black silk over his neck and lets it fall to the floor. “My father was an alcoholic, he would preach at day and drink cheap whiskey at his desk at night.” Her fingers make deft work of the small, white buttons on his shirt.

She feels his hand trail up her arm, and for some reason despite being a smart girl, she doesn’t pull away. She simply waits, while his fingers travel over her collarbone, up her neck, and rest to cup her jaw. She closes her eyes, there’s this nagging at the base of her heart telling her that there’s something wrong, something slightly misplaced, that his hands should be rougher than they are now. She’s still not quite sure why she doesn’t pull away. 

“You need to be more careful you know…there aren’t many good men left in this world.“ He murmurs. She wraps a hand around his and brings it back down on the bed. She watches his chest fall and rise, and soon enough she hears a slight, quiet snore escape him. “Good night, Mr. DeWitt.”

She rises and departs quietly, his apartment has no pictures on the walls, no frames with family faces in it, and is as forthcoming as the nods he tends to give when the cross paths are. She replaces the key under the mat, and walks downstairs to curl back into her bed.

______________________________________________________________________

That night she dreams of a small row boat treading choppy water, she sees herself chopping of her hair with bloody scissors, a man with calloused hands and an even more rough voice, cities burning and cities were you can walk through the clouds. 

She wakes with her heart loud, and stomach aching and runs out the door in the morning realizing she’s late for her graduate class.

_______________________________________________________________________

When she returns home, she stops in front of the door in the hallway, there’s a small brown package sitting idly before her feet, her name scratched on the surface with ballpoint neatly.

She sets her belongings down at coffee table and unwraps the brown parchment paper, there’s a small note inside.

 

Elizabeth,

Thank you for last night, it was rather unbecoming of me. I’ve gotten you something in case any more drunk, strange men pass by your door in the middle of the night. I’ve also left my number, so please, call me if it does happen. You never know when your altruism can be misplaced.

Also, call me Booker, not Mr. DeWitt.

Also, call me for anything really.

Yours,

Booker

 

Elizabeth opens the box, and inside is a small canister of mace and a small pocket knife. She can’t help but laugh warmly at the gesture, while rummaging through her purse for her phone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a prompt on Tumblr and published under one of my irrelevant side blogs: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ironsteeples 
> 
> It was the middle of the night, and somehow, I just went with it. Enjoy and tell me what you think.


End file.
